Robert Carlin – 38 Northhttps://www.38north.org
Informed analysis of events in and around North KoreaTue, 19 Feb 2019 15:29:45 +0000en-UShourly1Negotiating with North Koreahttps://www.38north.org/2019/02/rcarlin021919/
Tue, 19 Feb 2019 15:29:45 +0000https://www.38north.org/?p=17051This is an article about the “p” word—process. In some circles, it considered best to speak the word with head…

]]>This is an article about the “p” word—process. In some circles, it considered best to speak the word with head tilted slightly back, indicating barely concealed contempt. That way, you can demonstrate that you don’t think the manner and means—i.e., the process—by which agreements are negotiated are important because you are tough-minded and are really only interested in results.

Why such an allergy to using the “p” word exists is a good question. How in the world anyone expects to cross the street without putting one foot in front of the other, I don’t know. Negotiations need process—at the simplest level, the where, when, what and who; tables and chairs and coffee breaks for crucial off-line conversations; dinners or lunches sometimes; paper, pencils, a joke here or there to break the tension. And most of all, process is communication—serious, sustained, intense communication of ideas back and forth across the table. That includes listening closely as well as speaking precisely.

Perhaps one reason “process” is in ill repute is that from the outside negotiations look like a game where the score can be tallied after each inning. Who won, who lost, what were the errors, and is anyone left on base?

From my experience, that is not normally how things have worked with the North Koreans. Quite the opposite. What made negotiations possible, for talks to move forward, was the agreeable fiction that “nothing is decided until everything is decided.” That can sound like an awkward approach, but it had significant advantages. Any single concession in isolation may have been too much for Pyongyang—or Washington, for that matter—to digest. Seen as part of a final structure, however, the pieces could appear logical, practical and necessary. Moreover, with trust in short supply, neither side had to commit fully on any one issue until the entire structure was complete, at which point it became possible to weigh the balance of all the give and take. Whether that approach will work in the current context, starting at top-level meetings and coming back down the mountain to working levels remains to be seen. The intense public and political focus on the US-DPRK “summits”—a word infused with almost mythical importance—may make it much more difficult to hold off scoring the inning, thus depriving the process of its full potential.

Negotiations with the North Koreans are widely described as tough, rough, rugged, contentious, and other words suggesting unpleasantness. That may be, and certainly was how many people have felt at the end of a long day sitting across from a DPRK negotiating team. But it is actually a question of where along the arc of the negotiations one looks. The North’s opening positions—certainly those at the beginning of a negotiating process—can be frightful, though they often contain faint clues about movement down the road. The word “impossible,” repeated frequently enough in the North Korean position starts to make the entire exercise seem a waste of time, until, usually late in the talks, what was impossible suddenly becomes possible. Although normally cautious at the outset, there have been times when the North started the talks with a big bang, as in July 1993 when it advanced the idea of trading graphite moderated (plutonium production) reactors for light water reactors. In effect, Kim Jong Un has done something similar along these lines by feeding into the mix important concessions (e.g., announcing a full stop to nuclear and missile tests; putting Yongbyon on the table) even before the negotiations have begun.

The North Koreans pay a lot of attention to atmospherics. Generally, they do their best to keep the atmosphere civil and professional, even using humor at times to keep things buoyant. What they expect in return is for the other side to respond in kind. Make no mistake, that isn’t meant to imply that things don’t sometimes get testy, but those moments tend to be the exception rather than the rule. Sometimes they are part of a well-defined tit-for-tat exercise. “If you Americans slam your notebooks down and walk out of the room, then we have to do that, too.” The North Koreans are at their most prickly and defensive when they sense that the other side is toying with them, not taking them seriously. They demand a level playing field at least in terms of respect at the table. Their radars are sensitive to slights of the sort Americans are all too prone to give without even realizing it. That becomes less of a problem when the two teams become accustomed to each other, but it never goes away entirely.

North Korean negotiators often nibble at the edges of compromise, giving way on small matters in order to keep up some sense of forward momentum while saving the most difficult issues for last. If they are looking down the road to an eventual resolution of a problem, experience suggests they would rather avoid butting heads too hard too early in the process, or risk putting themselves into tactical corners from which it is hard to get out.

In negotiations, speed can kill. Solutions—rarely perfect, it is true—tend to emerge over time. If the DPRK side retreats from a position, it may not be immediately apparent. In some instances, they lay down what is in effect a rhetorical barrage to cover the fact that they have backed up to a new line both easier to defend and easier to abandon when the time comes for a settlement. A key point to remember is that when dealing with the North, diplomacy can change “reality” as it moves; perspectives and options for both sides begin to look different in the light of even incremental progress.

As a general rule, North Korean negotiators proceed cautiously, sometimes circuitously. The path to “yes” tends not to come in a straight line. They tend not to drop old positions; what is important is to listen for their description of “changed circumstances” within which they carve out room for flexibility down the line. They don’t, as a matter of course, simply raise new demands when old ones are met, pocketing a concession and asking for more. They often use progress to build more progress, sometimes even expressly matching concession for concession. They insist on a sense of balance and reciprocity at all times, especially in any documents that emerge from talks. Procedure and agenda are seriously important. An American position that starts with “You are the problem, and you have to solve it,” is a good way to get nowhere fast.

Americans tend to be impatient, to want rapid and well-defined progress. We are prone to lay down preconditions, either to convince ourselves that the other side is seriously committed, or to wriggle around domestic political pressure. The North Koreans will not accept anything that is expressly identified as or even has the whiff of being a precondition. If the other side insists on preconditions, they will lay down their own, something they understand will obstruct even starting serious talks. Preconditions are, to the North Koreans, a way of bullying them, of seeming to put them on a leash even before negotiations begin. That is something they simply will never accept. The way around this? Diplomats are paid to wrap fish in perfumed silk bags, and a precondition has to be well packaged to pass the smell test in Pyongyang.

All, some, or none of the above may be applicable to what goes on in Hanoi at the next summit. Both leaders are free to put aside their briefing books—assuming they even look at them—and move according to their instincts and sense of the possible. Bureaucracies and advisors working with kings, emperors and presidents have known that for centuries. Having the Hanoi talks over two days (February 27-28) may provide useful space for refining and correcting missteps by either side on day one. Many experts would be more comfortable with the working-level process leading, possibly and eventually, to the summit. But we have the reverse, and no one really knows what it will mean to ski downhill from the top of Mt. Everest.

In his January 1st New Year’s speech, Kim Jong Un was almost relentlessly positive in discussing DPRK-US relations, a topic that took up an unusually large portion of the entire address. Rather than reprise the complaints about the negotiations with the US that had been the focus of numerous Pyongyang commentaries in recent months—almost all of them aimed at the external audience and not replayed on domestic media—Kim instead recounted his upbeat personal experience and almost unalloyed expectations as a result of the June 2018 Singapore summit. By doing so, he has deliberately left himself and President Trump maximum space for conducting negotiations leading up to a second summit. At the same time, Kim emphasized for the internal North Korean audience that he is personally committed to moving ahead with the US, and at least guardedly optimistic that progress is possible. This posture was in some ways similar to Kim’s public, personal commitment in January 2018 to engaging ROK President Moon Jae-in, which resulted in rapid progress on the inter-Korean front early in the year.

Outside observers have paid special attention to the formulation in Kim’s address that:

“…if the United States…attempts to unilaterally enforce something upon us and persists in imposing sanctions and pressure against our Republic, we may be compelled to find a new way for defending the sovereignty of the country and the supreme interests of the state and for achieving peace and stability of the Korean peninsula.”

The formulation is vague, and no doubt intentionally so. On two counts it does not commit Kim to any particular course of action. First, the term “new way” is sufficiently vague so that, at least on the face of it, it could mean anything. Kim’s gauzy language gives the North the option of feeding out the real meaning drop by drop when and if it wants. Second, Kim was careful to use a construction that Pyongyang often employs to avoid making a direct, concrete threat from which retreat is difficult, i.e., “we may be compelled,” or “we may have no choice but…” as opposed to the more definite “we will.”

Kim’s use of the term “supreme interests of the state” in the above formulation is unusual. Over the years, the North has most often used that term in connection with arguments of why it needs a nuclear deterrent. Undoubtedly, there are those in Pyongyang who will recall that the DPRK was exercising the “supreme interests” clause when the North first announced its withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in March 1993.

Timing. A constant DPRK theme since the Singapore Summit has been that progress in US-DPRK relations, on the way to the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” depends on the two sides taking “a simultaneous and phase-by-phase course based on reciprocity and equality.” In fact, the North’s accounts of the June summit meeting claimed that:

“The DPRK and US supreme leaders agreed that it is important to observe the principle of step-by-step simultaneous actions in the process of achieving peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

It seems worth noting, therefore, that Kim did not bring up the “phase-by-phase” approach in his speech, and to some extent, even hinted at a way to expedite progress, claiming that:

“If the US responds to our proactive, prior efforts [i.e., presumably meaning not something new on the North’s part] with trustworthy measures and corresponding practical actions, bilateral relations will develop wonderfully at a fast pace through the process of taking more definite and epochal measures.”

A January 2 article by a key and well-informed commentator—Kim Ji Yong—in the pro-North Korean paper in Japan, Choson Sinbo, seemed at pains to take note of the absence (maybe even the oversight?) in Kim Jong Un’s speech of any reference to the “phase-by-phase” approach. Perhaps by way of clarifying, the Choson Sinbo piece claimed:

“The New Year address confirms the supreme leader’s unchanging commitment to implement the 12 June North Korea-US Joint Statement and reiterates the stage-by-stage simultaneous action principle agreed upon at the Singapore summit. There is no need to add something new or make a new proposal.”

As if it were not already clear, the Choson Sinbo article sharpened the message, pointedly noting that, “The New Year’s address contains a very concise and clear message to the occupant of the White House.”

Denuclearization. Kim Jong Un affirmed it was his “firm will” to “advance towards complete denuclearization.” Curiously—and whether by design or not—he did not clearly say “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” the normal DPRK formulation and the one that appears in the Singapore Summit document. The earliest appearing KCNA English version of Kim’s speech rendered this more carefully, noting that Kim had laid out his goal to “establish a new relationship between the two countries, set up a permanent and durable peace mechanism in the Korean peninsula and completely denuclearize it in keeping with the demand of the new century, as clarified in the June 12 DPRK-U.S. joint statement.”

The subsequent, full text English-language versions that were carried by KCNA and appeared on the Rodong Sinmun website, however, failed to link “denuclearization” so clearly and directly with the “Korean Peninsula,” instead rendering Kim’s remarks as:

“It is the invariable stand of our Party and the government of our Republic and my firm will to establish a new bilateral relationship that meets the demand of the new era as clarified in the June 12 DPRK-US Joint Statement, build a lasting and durable peace regime and advance towards complete denuclearization.”

Nuclear weapons production. Kim claimed that as evidence of the North’s commitment to the above goals:

“Accordingly, we declared at home and abroad that we would neither make and test nuclear weapons any longer nor use and proliferate them, and we have taken various practical measures.”

At the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) Third Plenum in April 2018, the North declared a total halt to nuclear weapons and ICBM tests and offered a qualified pledge not to use or proliferate nuclear weapons. There was no reference to stopping “production,” at the time, nor has there been anything along those lines since. The closest Pyongyang has come is Kim’s offer in September to dismantle fissile material production facilities at Yongbyon if the US takes “corresponding measures.” Thus, the question arises, was Kim slipping in a pledge to halt “production” while making it appear this was not new and thus not a further concession on his part even before negotiations got underway? It is interesting to note that with Kim’s remarks on stopping “production,” the North has now checked off three (highlighted in bold below) of the eight activities North and South Korea pledged in their January 1992 Denuclearization Declaration not to undertake:

Clearly, the three highlighted in yellow remain key to eventual total denuclearization.

Economic issues. Not surprisingly, Kim’s main focus in his speech this year was switch from “byungjin” (the previous policy of simultaneous effort on the economy and the nuclear weapons sector) to total focus on the economic construction—the “new strategic line” adopted at the Third WPK Plenum. To underline the point, Kim twice went out of his way to single out the implications of the new line, especially for the all-important munitions industry. First, he noted the munition industry’s production of “a variety of farm machinery, construction equipment, cooperative product and consumer goods.” Later in the speech, as if to drive home the point, he underlined:

“The munitions industry should, on the one hand, steadily raise the national defense capacity to that of the world’s advanced countries by stepping up the effort for making the defense industry Juche-based and modern, therefore guaranteeing the peace on the Korean peninsula by force of arms, and, on the other, should actively support economic construction.”

As usual, Kim made no overt mention of economic reform, but he did use code phrases that stand for the new policies he has been pushing since coming to power in 2011.

“The Cabinet and other state and economic guidance organs should improve planning, pricing, and monetary and financial management in line with socialist economic law and make sure that economic levers have a positive effect on the revitalization of production and expanded reproduction in enterprises. They should adjust the structures and system of work to raise the efficiency of economic work and to make enterprises smoothly conduct their business activities.”

In the agricultural sphere, he explicitly recognized “sideline” efforts by “individual farmers” as an important contribution to the supply of meat and eggs to the population. Sideline farming has been an important factor increasing agricultural production, and the regime has given it formal, approved status for many years. Recently, in his speech at the 7th WPK Congress in 2016, Kim spoke of the need to develop “individual livestock farming at rural households.” That fits with a broader initiative by Kim to develop what is now known as—but rarely discussed in the media—the “plot responsibility system,” designed to motivate farmers to grow more by, at least in theory, allowing them to keep more. Thus, while his reference to “individual” farming is not new, it reinforces the legitimacy of these efforts and, presumably, will prod local authorities to encourage them.

The Choson Sinbo article filled in something left unspoken in Kim’s New Year’s address but which dominates the regime’s calculations and was presented as a major rationale at the time of the Third Plenum decision on the “new strategic line.” It clarified the linkage between the external security situation and the North’s new, concentrated efforts on economic construction, and the assertion that by successfully eliminating the threat of war, the DPRK was removing the biggest obstacle to rebuilding the economy.

]]>DPRK Repeats Stance on Denuclearizationhttps://www.38north.org/2018/12/rcarlin122118/
Fri, 21 Dec 2018 15:53:39 +0000https://www.38north.org/?p=16716Just a week after the last high-level commentary carried by KCNA, another one by the same author—Jong Hyon—appeared on December…

]]>Just a week after the last high-level commentary carried by KCNA, another one by the same author—Jong Hyon—appeared on December 20. This one has caused a considerable reaction in Western media, though it actually contains little that is new. The focus of attention has been on the commentary’s brief discussion of denuclearization:

When we refer to the Korean peninsula, they include both the area of the DPRK and the area of south Korea where aggression troops including the nuclear weapons of the U.S. are deployed.

When we refer to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, it, therefore, means removing all elements of nuclear threats from the areas of both the north and the south of Korea and also from surrounding areas from where the Korean peninsula is targeted.

This is not a new North Korean position, though observers might be excused for mistaking it for a shift, or the uncovering of something that had heretofore been hidden. Since this July, the focus of the North Korean public position on denuclearization has been on sanctions, and the problem is portrayed as flowing from the oft-stated US policy that sanctions would not be lifted until the North had finished dismantling its nuclear program.

In some cases, the North complained the US was calling for the North’s “unilateral” denuclearization. The North’s counter has been that denuclearization was embedded in a broader process of US-DPRK normalization and peace. Pyongyang’s stated position that this would probably not proceed quickly, and that the process should proceed step by step, starting with what was “feasible.” The North said it had kick-started the process by taking a number of unilateral steps (e.g. shutting down the nuclear test site) and putting on the table several others (e.g. in September offering to dismantle key facilities in Yongbyon if the US would take “corresponding actions in line with the spirit of the June 12 DPRK-U.S. joint statement.”)

In September, Kim Jong Un introduced a new formulation, “to turn this land into a nest of peace where neither nuclear weapons nor nuclear threat exist.” There was no public elaboration of that position, but it stood—albeit in abstract, somewhat poetic terms—as a new DPRK definition of denuclearization. Undoubtedly, it was meant to be consistent with the June 12 US-DPRK Singapore Summit joint statement calling for “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” No one at the time should have imagined that by this terminology (denuclearization of the “Korean Peninsula”) the North meant anything other than its already established call for US steps to remove its “nuclear threat” against the DPRK. In effect, Kim’s introduction of the new formulation was cueing up the issue of what Pyongyang intended to raise as the US half of the denuclearization issue.

This is a point the latest Jong Hyon commentary emphasized with relish:

It was the U.S. misguided understanding of the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

In other words, the U.S. regards the big concept of the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula as the same as the partial concept of the “denuclearization of north Korea”.

The June 12 DPRK-U.S. joint statement signed by the top leaders of both sides and supported by the whole world does not contain any phrase called “denuclearization of north Korea”.

It only contains the phrase “denuclearization of the Korean peninsula”.

In the background. A fuller exposition of the North’s view on the US half of the denuclearization issue exists—and apparently is still relevant—in a July 6, 2016 DPRK Government spokesman’s statement. That statement asserted:

We clearly state that the denuclearization we call for is the denuclearization of the entire Korean Peninsula.

This includes the South’s nuclear abolition and the denuclearization of the areas around South Korea.

The statement went on to elaborate by listing five points.

First, all nuclear weapons of the United States, which it has neither confirmed nor denied after bringing them into South Korea, must be publicly disclosed.

Second, all nuclear weapons and their bases in South Korea must be abolished, and their abolition verified before the world.

Third, a guarantee must be made that the United States will never again introduce the means of nuclear strike to the Korean Peninsula and its surrounding areas, where it has frequently deployed them. (Note: Jong Hyon’s formulation is somewhat more restrictive, “from surrounding areas from where the Korean peninsula is targeted.”)

Fourth, a firm commitment must be made to not threaten or blackmail us with nuclear weapons or through acts of war that mobilize nuclear weapons, and to not use nuclear weapons against our Republic under any circumstances.

Fifth, the withdrawal of the US forces, which hold the right to use nuclear weapons, from South Korea must be declared.

Bottom line. Other than warning that continuation of current US policy will have “disastrous results,” the Jong Hyon commentary contains no threats. Its prescription for “a way out,” is relatively simple, and somewhat Delphic, giving Pyongyang maximum room to maneuver if the process manages to move back into negotiations:

If the U.S. gives up the ambition for denuclearization by dint of high-handed practices and pressure and unilateral “denuclearization of north Korea”, the way-out will be shown.

]]>After a lengthy, six-week silence, Pyongyang finally weighed in again with extended criticism of Washington’s stance regarding US-DPRK talks, using what appears to be an authoritative-level article, written under the name of Jong Hyon and carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. The article appeared only three days after the Treasury Department announced sanctions against Choe Ryong Hae—Korean Worker’s Party vice chairman, Politburo Presidium member, and vice chairman of the State Affairs Commission, which DPRK officials say is in charge of negotiations with the US. Though the Jong Hyon article did not mention this latest development, it surely rankled Pyongyang, a fact made clear in a statement by the policy research director of the Institute for American Studies (IFAS) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea a few days later.

The Jong Hyon criticism of US administration officials was noticeably harsh, but still careful to toe the line in not attacking anyone by name. The broadside at “a brazen faced guy” who “had amicable negotiations” with the DPRK side, but back home talked about a “rogue state” and “maximum pressure” was unmistakably aimed at Secretary of State Pompeo, who has visited Pyongyang several times. Personal invective against the other side’s officials, especially leading figures on its negotiating team, marks an unpleasant moment but is not an insurmountable barrier. Pyongyang can reverse itself in its public estimation of individuals when it wants. Comment issued in the name of the Foreign Ministry tends to shy away from personal invective, and the IFAS piece, though singling out the Secretary of State—by position but not by name—left out the harsher characterization of the secretary.

More crucially, unlike DPRK criticism over the past five months, the Jong Hyon article did not soften its rhetorical barbs by suggesting that the administration was not so much at fault itself but only wavering under fire from the political opposition, or that US politics was behind Washington’s policy misdirection. The last Jong Hyon article, on October 20, had left the administration partially off the hook by noting that “we are aware of the ‘embarrassing situation’ and ‘awkward position’ of the White House with the November off-year election of U.S. Congress just ahead.”

This time the criticism was aimed squarely at the administration. Significantly, the article adhered to what is obviously top-level guidance and stopped well short of any criticism of the president himself, though it did not indicate continued “trust” in him, as some North Korean comments had done a few times before. The IFAS statement took up the task of portraying the president as standing on the right side of the issue, noting that he “avails himself of every possible occasion to state his willingness to improve DPRK-U.S. relations.” The State Department’s stance, it noted pointedly, was “far from the statements of the president.”

Overall, despite its criticism, the Jong Hyon article did not characterize the situation as moving in a dangerous direction, complaining only that things were, in effect, stuck in the mud. It blamed that state of affairs on the failure of the US to respond positively to already announced North Korean actions or decisions on the denuclearization issue. Jong Hyon did credit the US with at least some positive movement, noting that “a high-ranking US official” (i.e., Vice President Pence) had recently said the US “would not demand” a North Korean declaration of its nuclear and missile programs as a precondition for the second US-DPRK summit. It claimed that the US had withdrawn the demand for a DPRK declaration “after understanding its unreasonable and impudent nature,” but then added that this could not be considered “a carrot given to the DPRK,” especially since such a declaration would have been essentially “urging the DPRK itself to specify the coordinates for a strike.”

The “stalemate” description in the Jong Hyon article is important. It is meant as a signal that the current situation, while stuck, may not yet be sinking into the danger zone, and implies that the North can hold its nose and live with things as they are a while longer. Thus, the article did not have to contain any threats. Perhaps the closest it came was in claiming that it has been a year since “tens of millions of Americans suffered from the horrible nightmare of a nuclear disaster every night and bustled around in despair after mistaking a meteor from the nocturnal sky for a ballistic missile from north Korea”—a dark reminder of where the situation had been and, perhaps unspoken, where it might be again. The December 16 IFAS statement also recalled the more dangerous situation last year—curiously stating that period had been “marked by exchanges of fire,” but took the next step and explicitly revived the possibility of a “deterioration of the situation that might be incurred” by US “hostile actions,” warning that it will “block the path to denuclearization on the Korean peninsula forever.”

Rather than issue such threats, the Jong Hyon article ended somewhat uncharacteristically on a couple of upbeat notes. It asserted that the DPRK “hopes” the US will “reach the place where the DPRK has already reached” and that it is “waiting with patience” to see the US “come to its senses” on this issue of sanctions and pressure which, it underlined, were incompatible with improving US-DPRK relations. Not surprisingly, both Jong Hyon and the IFAS statement agreed on the bottom line, that the way forward was for the US to take “step by step” measures responding to those taken by the DPRK. The IFAS statement repeated a standard Foreign Ministry line that action should start by resolving what is “feasible.” Jong Hyon was content to invite Washington to “join the DPRK in efforts for improved DPRK-US relations.”

“Patience” has been a note Pyongyang has struck ever since the US-DPRK Singapore declaration in June. At some point, the North could revive a tougher theme: that there is “a limit” to its patience. But to do so now would raise the specter of an evolving crisis, which apparently Pyongyang does not yet want to do. Although the IFAS article adopted a somewhat more threatening tone, with no reference to “patience,” it was written in the first person, thus allowing Pyongyang to claim that these were the views of a relatively low-ranking official.

By contrast, the Jong Hyon article is more authoritative, and its assertion that the North “will wait with patience,” coming only two weeks before Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s speech, may be calculated—if nothing else untoward happens in the meantime—to give Kim room to take a similar approach, critical of Washington but still suggesting the door remains open to progress between him and the US president.

]]>Dogs Not Barking: Pyongyang’s Long Silencehttps://www.38north.org/2018/11/rcarlin112818/
Wed, 28 Nov 2018 16:18:03 +0000https://www.38north.org/?p=16612Since the US elections on November 6, North Korean central media have been conspicuously silent on the state of US-DPRK…

]]>Since the US elections on November 6, North Korean central media have been conspicuously silent on the state of US-DPRK negotiations. There are times when such silence from Pyongyang is golden, other times ominous, and occasionally merely confusing. This one manages to fall between all three stools. After a spate of Pyongyang complaints about Washington in the first week of November, the silence now is all the more glaring. Instead of commenting in its own voice, the North has left it to the pro-North Korean paper in Japan, Choson Sinbo, to carry the burden. Containing a little of each, a Choson Sinbo article on November 26 authored by a key commentator—Kim Ji Yong—suggests an effort by Pyongyang to continue to warn Washington even while easing off its threats and edging into a public posture of something approaching a wait-and-see with Washington.

Overall, the article portrayed the situation as considerably less than ideal but still not yet in the danger zone. It voiced complaints, as had a similar piece on November 9 also by Kim Ji Yong, about what it portrayed as US efforts to interfere with the development of inter-Korean relations, singling out a newly formed US-ROK working group for coordinating policy as an effort by Washington to “regulate” the speed of Seoul’s moves toward the North. The article did not, however, accuse the US of completely stopping progress in inter-Korean ties, nor did it suggest that at this point the North-South efforts were yet in serious danger of falling off track.

The article went no further than stating that US efforts to slow the inter-Korean process were “making people skeptical” of Washington’s commitment to the US-DPRK summit agreements. That formulation falls on the softer edge of warnings, deliberately leaving ambiguous who the “people” are, though later in the piece there is a broad hint that this is a reference to discussions in Pyongyang. Use of the term “skeptical” implies that while leaning negative, those “people” have not made a final judgment. Reinforcing this image of skepticism, the article went on to claim that because of the US administration’s mixed signals—that is, stating hope for a second US-DPRK summit “early next year” while obstructing inter-Korean affairs—“some people opine that it is a sign of turning to a ‘Trump style strategic patience’ to focus on managing the situation while not overturning the table of negotiations with the DPRK.” In other words, Pyongyang still wants to be seen as holding at least some hope that Washington has not yet thrown the negotiations to the wolves.

As an indication that the North is holding open the path to progress, the article continued to portray the US-DPRK meeting in Singapore last June as a “success,” and did not—as it might eventually do—accuse the US administration of bad faith at the summit or of moving backwards vis-a-vis Pyongyang since then. Instead, it complained only that the US was “marking time,” suggesting more definitive developments—either positive or negative—could yet come. The problem, as the article laid it out, was that “if DPRK-US relations come to a standstill, the voice of opponents is bound to grow louder.” While this would appear to point to opposition in the US, which DPRK commentators have complained about since the summer, it might equally apply to critics in Pyongyang.

The article’s bottom line made clear that the “people” Kim was speaking of earlier in the piece were, indeed, in Pyongyang. He described the current situation as one in which “the DPRK, in its position, cannot but have doubt about dialogue partner.” This “cannot but” formulation is also one of the softer ones in the North’s rhetorical arsenal, indicating a measure of reluctance in coming to a negative conclusion, and implicitly suggesting there is still room for reevaluation. The only thing approaching a threat was put in vague language, especially compared with the North’s blunter warnings earlier this month that a return to the “byungjin” policy (dual development of nuclear weapons and the economy) was under consideration at high levels in the leadership. The current article, stopping short of naming names, warned that “if the White House owner attempts to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor who, while talking about ‘patience,’ created a vicious circle of distrust and confrontation, the DPRK as well cannot help but adopt a reciprocal stance.” Again, the “cannot…but” formulation leaves Pyongyang considerable flexibility in its next moves.

]]>Look Before You Tweet: The Perils of Rushing Analysishttps://www.38north.org/2018/11/rcarlin111918/
Mon, 19 Nov 2018 20:27:14 +0000https://www.38north.org/?p=16606When the North Korean news service KCNA reported early on the morning of November 16 that Kim Jong Un had…

]]>When the North Korean news service KCNA reported early on the morning of November 16 that Kim Jong Un had visited the test ground of the Academy of Defense Science to supervise the test of a “newly developed ultramodern tactical weapon,” I had the pleasure of watching Twitter explode with learned commentary tumbling over itself to explain what this event meant. To be sure, my initial reaction had been, like others, that this was Kim’s way of reminding the US that he was going to continue to improve his military capabilities even as talks with Washington continued. In the worst case, it might even be an additional sign that he was edging further in the direction of recent warnings in North Korean media, that a return to the “byungjin” line (dual development of a nuclear deterrent and the economy) could be under discussion in the leadership.

But then, I took a deep breath. Years as an analyst had taught me to fight off the impulse to race to judgement, and to wait a bit to see what else might emerge. And, indeed, something else did.

It turned out that before the item on the weapon’s test, Pyongyang media had carried an extensive report of Kim’s visit to Sinuiju to lay out a long-term master plan for that key border city’s development. The relative importance of the two visits was made clear by treatment in the party newspaper Rodong Sinmun on November 16. The Sinuiju visit took up the paper’s entire first page, and was accompanied by several pictures. The test site visit was reported in a much shorter article on page 2, with only a single picture. The symbolism was clear—the party’s “new strategic line” of “everything for the economy” remains in effect. As if to drive that point home, on November 18, North Korean media again gave prominent attention to Kim’s economic field guidance, this time to the Taegwan Glass Factory.

What, then, are we to make of the report on Kim’s visit to the weapon’s test site? In fact, the report was similar to that for other visits he has made over the past several years for tests at the Academy of Defense Science, i.e., brief reporting that is relatively free of provocative language. If anything, the current report stands out for having no reference at all to “the enemy,” putting it in line with Pyongyang’s generally softer tone since the June US-DPRK summit in Singapore.

To be sure, one might argue that North Korea could have chosen not to report the event at all, but since we don’t know whether the media ever fail to report Kim’s on-site guidance visits, we can’t really go down that road. Alternatively, one might say, well, he didn’t have to go to the Academy of Defense Science at this moment. And it is true that if this visit had been reported in an unusual way, longer or more threatening, we might venture some hypothesis about what it meant. But until and unless there is a marked uptick in Kim’s appearances at military/defense related sites, probably the best thing to do is to put this visit in the pending file. Meanwhile, no doubt the challenge of determining what “ultramodern tactical weapon” that Kim observed will give numerous analysts a chance to look with less attention to Twitter and more precision at the evidence they carefully uncover.

]]>Pyongyang Warns Again on “Byungjin” Revivalhttps://www.38north.org/2018/11/rcarlin111318/
Tue, 13 Nov 2018 16:24:04 +0000https://www.38north.org/?p=16543Apparently concerned that Washington is not taking its warnings seriously, Pyongyang has conveyed through an article in Choson Sinbo, the…

]]>Apparently concerned that Washington is not taking its warnings seriously, Pyongyang has conveyed through an article in Choson Sinbo, the pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan, what it hopes will be read as a sober exegesis of its recent public criticism of the US. With a Pyongyang byline, the piece was authored by Kim Ji Yong, a reliable interpreter of DPRK policy pronouncements whose articles are often used by the North to put in plain language signals that it sometimes veils in confounding obscurity.

Citing the US State Department, the Choson Sinbo piece acknowledged that a trip to New York for “high-level talks” by DPRK chief negotiator Kim Yong Chol, scheduled for November 8, had been “postponed.” It obscured the fact that the North had asked for the postponement, asserting, “There are different interpretations of what is in the background.” It carefully did not rule out high-level talks in the future proceeding “without interruption in line with expectations and demands of both sides,” but waved a warning flag that this progress would need to be based on an understanding that the “premise established for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is the implementation of the most rational and most fair phased simultaneous action principle.” The article also gingerly raised that possibility of the North hanging back on a second Trump-Kim summit, implicitly arguing that if the US does not take “credible measures” to address North Korean “concerns” in high-level talks, the summit could be delayed.

The Choson Sinbo article embellished on criticism that had appeared in a pair of KCNA commentaries last month complaining that after Secretary of State Pompeo came out of what the North has portrayed as an unmistakably positive October 9 meeting with Kim Jong Un, elements in the Trump administration had moved almost directly into negative comments. The article drew special attention to the warning in a November 2 commentary by the head of the Foreign Ministry’s Institute for American Studies (IFAS) that the North’s current strategic line of “everything for the economy” could change back to the “byungjin” line—i.e., equal emphasis on the nuclear weapons and economic sectors. In a dramatic rendition of internal events leading up to that warning, the piece said that “alarm bells were sounded through a public institution handling US affairs as a departure from [the relatively more positive] editorial tone of news media.” In case anyone missed the point, the Choson Sinbo piece underlined that the IFAS commentary would not have included reference to such a potentially seismic policy shift without the approval of higher authority.

While still abiding by what is clearly high-level Pyongyang guidance to avoid criticism of President Trump by name, the article took a couple of sideways swipes at the president, slamming two of his public positions—his claim that he was in “no rush” for progress in talks with the North, and that the South could do nothing without US approval, something the article labeled as a “speed control theory.” The piece also took him to task for “touting” the absence of North Korean nuclear and missile tests as if that were his doing rather than Pyongyang’s initiatives.

At the same time, as have earlier articles in DPRK media, the piece gave the president leeway, claiming:

North Korea knows that President Trump has many enemies in his effort to implement the 12 June North Korea-US Joint Statement adopted at the Singapore summit. There are advisors not on the same page with the president. The bureaucratic group including the US Department of State is creating artificial obstacles to the implementation of the joint statement.

]]>DPRK Notches Up the Warningshttps://www.38north.org/2018/11/rcarlin110518/
Mon, 05 Nov 2018 15:35:05 +0000https://www.38north.org/?p=16485Carefully, on little cat feet, Pyongyang has sent a new warning about the mounting dangers of what it sees as…

]]>Carefully, on little cat feet, Pyongyang has sent a new warning about the mounting dangers of what it sees as Washington’s “all-take-but-no-give” approach in the aftermath of the US-DPRK Summit in Singapore. As a means of escalating the profile of its criticisms while still keeping them from crossing the line into a formal, official complaint, Pyongyang chose to issue a “commentary” on November 2 by Kwon Jong Gun, director of the Foreign Ministry’s Institute for American Studies (IFAS). Kwon is concurrently the director general of the Ministry’s North American Affairs Department, which implicitly gives his words added weight; moreover, this is the first time that an IFAS director has publicly issued a comment since the institute was formed in 2015. Previous comments have been issued in the name of the IFAS “spokesman” or various institute “researchers.” Operating under the IFAS umbrella seems to have given Pyongyang more flexibility in publicly dealing with issues of US-DPRK relations, allowing it to comment at greater length and with somewhat more nuance (though less authority) than statements issued by the Foreign Ministry itself.

Kwon’s threat, carefully couched, raised the specter of the North revising the new “strategic line” announced at a Workers’ Party plenum last April and bringing back the previous “byungjin” two-line policy, i.e., simultaneous focus on the nuclear program and the economy, under which the North made considerable progress in both its nuclear and missile programs from 2013 to 2017. Kwon warned that such a shift back to the previous policy “could” (not “would”) occur if the US fails to mend its ways and sticks to its current course. Perhaps even more serious, he warned that “such a view has already begun to appear in the DPRK.” Presumably, this is meant to be a reference to internal discussions, because Kwon’s was the first time that viewpoint is known to have appeared in DPRK media.

In the commentary, Kwon put forth what may actually be a high-level perception in Pyongyang—that the US did not get serious about talks until the North demonstrated in 2017 that it could strike the US mainland with an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and made clear that the DPRK nuclear threat to the US mainland was “only a matter of time.” A worst-case interpretation of that position, unstated by Kwon, is that the North might at some point in the future decide the only way to get the US into productive talks would be to demonstrate even more starkly its ICBM capability.

Although there were probably some tactical considerations involved, it would be a mistake to interpret Kwon’s warnings as simply preparation for upcoming US-DPRK meetings, which could occur possibly as early as later this week. Kwon’s fundamental position goes to the heart of Pyongyang’s concern that the US has been moving backwards, away from the agenda the two leaders laid out in the Singapore Summit joint statement. Kwon held up for ridicule the widely-accepted position in Washington that it was sanctions that brought the DPRK to the negotiations, and that sanctions would not be removed until the North had finished denuclearization, a stance Secretary of State Pompeo articulated on November 1: “The economic sanctions will not be lifted until such time as we have had the capacity to verify that they have eliminated their nuclear program.” A slightly different version of that formulation appeared in the October 31 US-ROK Security Consultative Meeting communique: “…full implementation of all UN Security Council resolutions would continue until we are confident about North Korea’s complete denuclearization in a final, fully verified manner.”

The North’s new line—everything for the economy—was a pillar for Kim Jong Un’s shift in early 2018 to a policy of engagement with both Seoul and Washington. Long planned, with the foundations for that shift laid throughout 2017, the new line has been explained to the internal audience as the reason for this year’s intense focus on the economy, and for Kim’s very public insistence on improved performance in economic tasks by everyone, from lowly local officials all the way up to Cabinet. Backing away from that is not impossible but is probably not something Kim would want to do without making sure he had exhausted all possibilities with the US, including a second US-DPRK summit.

Despite the highly critical, and in a few places threatening, nature of the commentary, Kwon pulled punches on one crucial point. Though aimed at “high-ranking officials of the White House and the US Administration,” Kwon’s steered away from singling out President Trump, thus backing away somewhat from two commentaries carried by the North’s news agency KCNA last month, both of which specifically complained about the “US president.” Moreover, the overall tone in Kwon’s piece was not so much of confrontation but of ridicule about the US position. He cited “international opinion” to back up his criticism of the US and claimed that the UN itself has said that sanctions are “not unchangeable.” Until early this year Kwon had served as counselor at the DPRK UN Mission, and has direct experience with the North’s travails at the United Nations.